{"id":256829,"date":"2026-01-21T21:55:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T21:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/256829\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T21:55:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T21:55:09","slug":"the-winners-and-losers-as-ireland-names-six-nations-squad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/256829\/","title":{"rendered":"The winners and losers as Ireland names Six Nations squad"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"\"><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishexaminer.com\/maintopics\/munster-rugby_topic-5084372.html\">Munster<\/a> lock Edwin Edogbo and Ulster scrum-half Nathan Doak <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishexaminer.com\/sport\/rugby\/arid-41779919.html\">are the two uncapped players named in the 37-man squad<\/a>. Edogbo was superb off the bench against Castres last week and Doak has been pivotal to his province\u2019s revival this season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\n            Three for the front row:\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Injuries to Andrew Porter and Paddy McCarthy have led to recalls for the Munster looseheads Jeremy Loughman and Michael Milne. Tom Stewart\u2019s return in place of Gus McCarthy is purely a nod to his displays with Ulster.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\n            Backs back in the fold:\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Harry Byrne\u2019s reintegration was a cert given how he has pushed Sam Prendergast for the Leinster No 10 jersey. Robert Baloucoune has beaten the impressive pair of Zac Ward and JJ Kenny to a back three spot after returning from his own injury issues.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu caption\">Outside looking in<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\n            Iain Henderson:\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The Ulster captain and second row is 33 now and 14 years on from the first of his 85 caps. He played just under an hour <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishexaminer.com\/sport\/rugby\/arid-41734989.html\">against the All Blacks in Chicago<\/a> in November but Andy Farrell has turned to youth in the form of Edogbo.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\n            Caolin Blade:\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The title of Ireland\u2019s third-choice scrum-half has changed hands with Ulster\u2019s Doak usurping his Connacht counterpart, and the pair of Fintan Gunne and Ben Murphy make up the nines listed for the Ireland XVs selection.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\n            Gus McCarthy:\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The Leinster hooker has nine caps, started against Georgia and Portugal last summer and got a run against Japan in November. Behind Dan Sheehan and Ronan Kelleher at Leinster, he\u2019s now in the XVs group and has Tom Stewart in the queue ahead for Ireland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Munster lock Edwin Edogbo and Ulster scrum-half Nathan Doak are the two uncapped players named in the 37-man&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[54046,61,60,11287,11897,43,15551],"class_list":["post-256829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-irish-rugby","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-leinster-rugby","tag-munster-rugby","tag-news","tag-six-nations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}